Tempus ad Reclaimer: Splintered Humanity
by zekebomb
Summary: Humanity is at a Golden Age of society, with all bigotry and racism removed and scientific marvels are steadily discovered and recovered from the past. All three sects of man have been found and joined after the seeds were spread across the stars by the Forerunners. However and new threat arrives to threaten the peace. Slightly AU. Rated M for all the right reasons.
1. Prologue & Chapter 1: The Next Relay

**A/N: Thanks to BrokenArrow411 for making this story better then it was before with his awesome Beta skills. Everyone send him a big thank you. I mean it, I'll find you if you don't. Oh and decide the fate of the story by visiting my page and voting in the poles.**

**Stay classy everyone.**

* * *

**Tempus ad Reclaimer: Splintered Humanity**

Basic Overview of the Races in the Orion Council

It is a golden age for humanity. The three splinters have been found, divided between Earth, Erde-Tyrene, and Terra Prime. Her alliances stand with her, forged in the heat of battle or cool of diplomacy. Her culture has grown, casting aside her petty hatreds of race or color for true judgement of another's character. Politically everyone was bound to the Orion Council. The Orion Council is a loose governing force of democratic ambassadors from most sects with the only outliers being the True Reclaimer and the Arbiter. The Orion Council brings everyone together yet allows them to follow their own path of evolution. Economic policy was that goods were traded openly between all her members. Each sect has a role to play as a part of the Orion Council.

The Earth-born lead as the best Engineers and are the core of all industries. Their story is one of sadness, loss, and death. Driven by a corrupt society and greed they depleted their homeworld of all its resources before inventing the Shock Point Drive to escape its grip. The Earth-born soon fled from the gray, dying planet to strip the Solar System dry. In this flight they became hyper-materialistic and discovered their undoing, a beacon of solid black stone covered in strange red markings and seemed to emit endless energy. Recklessly the Earth-born begin experimenting on the beacon without considering the effects. This led to an outbreak of infectious material that converted people into creatures of nightmares…Necromorphs. Thousands upon thousands were lost before the infection was stopped by a genius Engineer named Isaac Clark whose mind was corrupted by the Beacon, which tortured him with the dementia and death it brought. Finally with the destruction of the Beacon, now known as the Black Marker, he rushed the space docks with millions of outraged others and stole 2000 ships, half of them Planet Cracker Class. Marvels of interstellar engineering, the Planet Cracker class could grow to a length of several miles and easily hold and support a large population due to their vast size and resource gathering capabilities. After several blind Shocks they met a patrol of Arisen just exiting Slipspace. After several frantic messages from the Earth-born to the Arisen they sighed in relief as they realized they had lost both Earth Gov and the Unitologists. The Unitologists were people who worshiped the Black Marker and wished to turn everyone into the nightmarish Necromorphs. The two quickly became allies and have been together ever since, both with a deep respect for each other from their struggles.

The Arisen from Erde-Tyrene lead as the subtle hand and iron fist. The Arisen suffered greatly and were almost pushed to the edge of extinction by a coalition of alien races known as the Covenant. In the utmost religious zeal they marched on the Arisen, bombarding hundreds of worlds with superheated plasma until they were nothing but glass. On the eve of losing their homeworld to the Covenant a crack developed among the ranks of the alien collective and their hierarchal power shifted. The result was an event later called the Great Schism where the main warrior caste, the Sangheili, was beaten down by a new caste, the Jiralhanae. The resulting conflict drove the Sangheili to ally with the Arisen who, with their help, pushed the Covenant to its destruction. The Arisen now follow the Mantle, an idea which proposes that the most evolved species shall protect the others and guide their paths for the greater good. The Arisen easily have the most advanced technology in the Council with to travel great distances and store items indefinitely in Slipspace, form Hard Light and plasma weaponry, build massive installations and ships, create stars and planets, produce hyper-advanced AI, and make nanotechnology to heal wounds and tweak DNA to produce a superior human. They are lead by the 'True Reclaimer', a person that is known to be the most genetically perfect. Many others resent the Arisen for their seeming arrogance and superiority complex.

The Terran from Terra Prime are the newest Sect of man, having only recently left the cradle of their own solar system for the worlds beyond. The Terran have the brightest history out of all the Sects with only two World Wars and no near extinction event, either from themselves or outside forces. They also, however, have an unfortunate technological blockade with a deadly dependency on what they call a Mass Relay to travel long distances. This dependency forces the Earth-born and the Arisen to keep a closer eye on them, wary for any enemy that may take advantage of this weakness. They have several extrasolar colonies and are expanding fast. The latest colony is a planet called Shanxi and is a heavy industrial center despite its recent settlement. Most Terran believe that everything should be given to them because they think they are ready for everything the galaxy can throw at them.

Other notable Sects in the Council are the Sangheili of Sanghelios, Unggoy of Balaho, Lekgolo of Te, and Kig Yar of Eayn. Each of these are the alien Sects of the Council and each have their own traits. Sangheili are a strong, proud race of warriors with a subtle fear of doctors. Unggoy are the workhorse race of the Council, working as dockworkers, attendants, aides, and the like. They breath methane rather then the 'regular' oxygen, requiring them to wear breathing harnesses when not in a methane rich environment. The Lekgolo are a malleable race of orange worms that can form together into bipedal colonies; however, it is known that there are only a few Lekgolo ships because of the number of colonies required to run them. The Mgalekgolo, a colony in bipedal form, were nicknamed Hunters by the Arisen who faced them, these twelve foot walking tanks are incredibly strong, durable, and an infantryman's worst nightmare. Finally the Kig Yar are a rouge race of merchants and pirates, whose concern lies in how good one's manners are… or how big your pocketbook is. They have been known to ruthlessly pursue both higher prices and their enemies to the end.

However, humanity stands on the eve of its next big discovery. The new Relay in the Shanxi-Theta System stands at the ready to launch the Orion Council into the next system in the great void of space, forever carving out a larger chunk of space under its unified banner.

* * *

CH. 1 - The Next Relay

Terran Vice Admiral Lucas Verdin look upon the recently developed world of Shanxi, watching from the narrow port window in the ships cockpit as the planet rotated slowly by. He marveled at how the gray of mega cities and factories and well as the deep green of the land in the rural areas and the blue hue of the water blended together on the planet below. Slowly the mega city, New Hope, that his sister worked in faded out of sight into the horizon. Verdin turned when he heard scurrying behind him.

The subordinate held up the data pad and saluted at the same time. Verdin grabbed the pad while giving the subordinate a predatory gaze. The subordinate saluted again and ran off back into the Combat Information Center. Verdin glanced through the data before cracking a rare smile and cueing the ship's comms system.

"Open a comm to the fleet, lieutenant, pilot plot a course to the dormant Relay," Verdin ordered.

"Coms open sir!"

"This is Vice Admiral Verdin to all ships in Exploration Group Alpha, we finally got the green light from the Council to activate the Relay. Everyone form up on me, standard positions."

Verdin watched from behind the pilot's seat as the EXG formed around the Shanxi-Theta Relay in the similar position as the previous three Relays they explored, with his cruiser _Enterprise_ leading the charge with the slightly smaller 10 frigates behind him and the six civilian science ships behind them. He smirked as the message 'Open Sesame' and the mass of his ship was sent and the Relay's rings started to grind and revolve around the bright blue Element Zero core.

The motion grew faster and faster until finally a blue lightning bolt lashed out when Verdin's flagship _Enterprise_ entered the 10,000 kilometer perimeter around the ring. The ship shook wildly as the space-time fabric was torn as the ship accelerated and then…nothing. A moment or two passed before the sensors and other important systems slowly reactivated.

"Give me a scan of the space around us and then signal the rest of the flotilla to come through." Verdin ordered.

"Scans complete sir, area's clear as far as we can tell but it'll take a few more moments for the Eezo residue interference to clear up."

Verdin nodded thoughtfully as he debated what to do. He had heard the stories of first contacts gone wrong from those damned Arisen but he has never encountered another alien race. With a flick of his wrist he watched as the rest of his flotilla shot out of the Relay around him, already in position. Suddenly the ship rocked as if something struck it in the side. Then another mini-quake rocked the ship. Monitors started to overload and shot out sparks at the people behind them, burning their faces and in some cases setting their clothes ablaze.

"What the hell was that!" Verdin shouted out.

"Whole group is under attack sir! The Frigates _Ray Luis_ and _King George_ aren't responding while the rest of the Frigates and the civilian ship are reporting damage. The civilian ship _Lusitania_ has reported the less damage and is closest to the Relay sir!" A random subordinate shouted out.

"Send them back through. Tell the rest of the group to form up in defensive formation. We have to cover the _Lusitania_!" Verdin barked back.

He maintained his cool but on the inside he was sweating. He was guilty of all the unknown deaths in his flotilla was his fault for his call. Verdin grimly watched as his ships formed up into a wall of durasteel and Kinetic Barriers.

"Can we get a read on our attackers?" Verdin asked.

"No sir, the sensors were damaged by the opening shots and we can only get visuals. The VI has traced the origins of the shots though."

Verdin sighed, before replying "Fire at the last known locations of those ships."

Verdin watched as the rest of the flotilla fired their barrage at the enemy. Most of the Mass Accelerator rounds missed the enemy and hit the large gas giant behind them. Some did hit but the blue shimmering around the ships proved they had barriers of some sort. More shots spat out of the unknown ships at them. Verdin grimly tracked them through the small window in the cockpit.

In a blink of and eye three rounds struck the _Enterprise_ right in the cockpit. The resulting rush of air sucked Verdin, bleeding, freezing, and choking, out of the cockpit. His last thoughts were of his sister and him laughing at his 48th birthday party in New Hope only weeks earlier. Then his vision faded to black and everything went numb.

* * *

Arisen Space Station _Prosperity_ Orbiting Terra Prime, Sol System

Orion Council Chambers

A Terran comms engineer ran down the hallway. A message for the civilian ship _Lusitania_ was flagged urgent, prompting her to run as fast as possible to the Council Chambers. She burst into the Council Chambers and immediately she had the energy weapons from the Sangheili and Arisen Honor Guard pointed at her. She raised her hands in surrender as one of them came and took the data pad with more force then necessary. She was immediately escorted out as the Honor Guard handed the pad to the True Reclaimer after scanning it for possible explosives or toxins.

"This is most disturbing," His deep voice rumbled as he read the short message, "Exploration Group Alpha was destroyed by an unknown faction, the _Lusitania_ was the only surviving ship."

The Terran ambassador, Udina, shot up "This is an outrage! I demand action! We need the Relay locked down, the civilians evacuated! We need everything!"

The Earth-born ambassador, Paul John, nodded "I agree. We must do something, but maybe not to the extent Udina suggests."

The Sangheili arbiter stood up, eager to fight after the assassination attempts last night "I say we burn them in their homes!"

The True Reclaimer smashed his fist into the table, denting the strong durasteel "We are not savages! I agree that we must do something in retaliation but we can't come off as unreasonable. It is easy to slip into a blood rage if we let our anger drive us, do you all not remember the destruction of the Covenant or the Oppression of Earth Gov? That is what happens when a government fails!"

The table became deathly silent as the True Reclaimer continued a bit calmer "It says there is a habitable planet in the system, they may inhabit it. I say we send an Inquisitor vessel through the Relay to gather information and in this time we gather strength outside the Shanxi-Theta Relay, in three days we strike. We destroy the armed fleet and any military installations in orbit and on the ground. After we've secured the planet we raid archives to create a translation matrix. In the last phase we appear around the location of their government and demand a treaty and reparations. I want zero civilian casualties in this campaign."

The table nodded and put in their vote for the plan, it was unanimous, even if Udina scoffed quietly before voting. Next the Sects put in their support. The Arisen donated the Alpha Attack Fleet and the 9th group SPARTAN II's, the Earth-born the 91st battle fleet, the Sangheili the Grand Fleet of Suburb Penance, the Terran the 81st Armoured Fleet and the 2nd Biotics Group, the Lekgolo the 131st Task Group, the Unggoy 9th Tactical Engineers, and the Kig Yar the 178th fleet and the attachment of the 52nd Sniper Battalion.

* * *

Shanxi-Theta Relay, Shanxi-Theta Cluster

Arisen Super Dreadnaught _Unyielding Death_ - Three days later

John awoke in the Captains Room and looked to his side at the empty space beside him. He sat up groaning and looked at the clock, it was 30 minutes before the Relay jump into the unknown. John sighed as the hangover slowly faded away and his senses returned to normal. Normally John didn't drink but somehow after arguing over the finer points of the attack with Udina and the new Arbiter for several hours a bottle of alcohol seemed to be the answer.

John missed Thel'Vadam. He had been a good friend and actually understood the importance of lives after the Great War of Arisen Space. Thel had died on the eve of the cracking of the Sangheili DNA. After that the current Arbiter stepped in and made John's life all that much harder with his rash decisions and romanticized ideas about combat.

John heard the shower running and steam wafting out of the bathroom and he smiled, knowing the only other person that could be in there. He stood up and stretched before walking to the shower. He grabbed a towel off the rack and threw it on the sink before opening the door to the shower.

A waft of heated water vapor hit him as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. John felt slender arms wrap around him and a face nuzzle his neck. John spun in the arms and grabbed the woman by her waist and pulled her closer. The woman giggled a little bit before kissing John on the lips.

"Good morning True Reclaimer," She said while she backed up out of John's arms and switched the water to include soap, a grin on her face the entire time.

John groaned "You know I hate it when you call me that Kelly."

Kelly just smiled even wider, enjoying his discomfort at the subject. She thought about their barrage as she went back to wash her hair. It had started long ago under Chief Mendez's grueling regiment to turn the kids into SPARTANS. She had noticed her affection for him when they sat under the stars and wondered aloud if there was alien life, long before the Covenant invasion. It took John longer, it wasn't until Cortana died and he fell into a deep depression that he finally began to realize what Kelly meant to him. John and Kelly have been married for almost 1000 years due to the improvements in nanotechnology and still had the same childlike love for each other. John stepped into the stream and washed himself as well, his thoughts are on the upcoming fight. John felt another pair of hands wash his much more private areas.

"Kelly I have to be on the bridge in 30," John said, his voice being a bit huskier then it was before.

"Oh?" She purred in a sultry tone, "Just enough time for a quickie."

Damn her was John's last thought as Kelly bowled him over.

* * *

Bridge of Arisen Super Dreadnaught _Unyielding Death_

"Status report!" The True Reclaimer shouted out as he entered the bridge. He was a bit fatigued after his time with Kelly and the short sprint to the bridge in his armour.

"Just in time sir, we are entering the Relay in five, four, three, two, one, and launch."

The ship barely shook as it was transported through the Relay channel. Suddenly the screens cleared as they exited the relay and reverted back to normal space. The True Reclaimer watched the main holoscreen as more of the fleets appeared out of the Relay.

"Everything ready?" the True Reclaimer asked.

"Yes sir!" the weapons lieutenant shouted out, "Spooled up the Onager Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, heated up the Daedalus particle dilator, armed the Slipspace torpedo pods 1-50, activated the point defense system, engaged Hard Light protection lattice, ionized the hull, and prepared the HEV's along sections 90-130."

The True Reclaimer nodded in faith of his crew, they were the best in the fleet and John picked them for that reason. Even in the millennia of peace they were the sharpest minds available in the Arisen Navy. They were loyal and trusting and would fight to the bloody end for him.

"Targeting solutions and enemy profiles acquired from the Inquisitor sir. We out mass them 1000 to 1. We have this fight in the bag sir."

The Inquisitor vessel was a recon vessel based on the old Prowler, using stealth to take in depth scans and planting the occasional photon bomb or two. The True Reclaimer thumbed the comms to FLEETCOMM, "Acquire your targets and fire at will, remember to not break formation until all opposition is destroyed. Don't get cocky and we'll all go home in one piece."

At this moment the photon bombs that were planted in the midst of the enemy fleet ignited, boiling the hulls and flash frying the crews, leaving nothing but dust floating where the ship's used to be. The True Reclaimer watched as the fleet moved like a pack of wolves with the nimbler, faster Terran ships weaving around the slow Arisen and Earth-born ships to get into flanking positions.

Reading the IFF tags on the holoscreen the True Reclaimer watched as the Arisen and Earth-born lined up in a fashion that was practiced since their inclusion into the Council. The massive flagship Unyielding Death took point as the Super Carriers and Carriers lined up behind it. The smaller ships would peak over the top and take shots or the Destroyers would charge ahead at the unready fleet and dump superheated plasma streams and mini nuclear missiles. This happened for the first wave of the attack as the 20 Arisen Destroyers of the Alpha Attack Fleet fleet rushed ahead at breakneck speeds.

John watched from his gilded throne on _Unyielding Death_ as the beautiful aqua marine and many mini black dashes sprayed over the top of the enemy fleet and molten durasteel shot off to cool in space. The enemy fleet was reduced once again by blinding white lights. Looking out the view windows he watched as the enemy fleet seemed to understand what was happening and turned on a dime at them, launching hypervelocity slugs at the Destroyers. Blood red Hard Light shields popped into place at the last second and the rounds pinged off like paperclips being flicked at a tank.

This told John that they must have strong electromagnetic pulse shielding to hold up against the EMP wave after the nukes detonate. John rubbed his chin in thought for a moment before snapping out of it. In battle extra thinking of matters offhand will kill you or others, not to mention the fleet was currently following his orders.

At this time most of the enemy fleet had their heads out of their collective asses and launched hundreds of rounds at the Super Dreadnaught and the Super Carriers. At this time it became easier to see the enemy ships. They were all dagger like and angular but also seemed slightly flamboyant with flaunting its thrusters on wings off to the side.

John thumbed on FLEETCOMM again "All ships fire!"

A conglomerate of thousands of lights sprang out of the massive wall of Forerunner and Titanium alloy. There was the deep purple of plasma bolts, the slivers of silver that was Earth-born Heavy Mechanized Cannons launching heated metal shards at speeds close to the speed of light, the yellow, gold lines of particle dilators, the orange streaks of Onager MAC's, and the pink of capital-class Needlers. For a second the space around the inhabited planet became a rainbow, and the next it was death in the cold, hard vacuum for the enemy.

The enemy front lines buckled and fractured as the first line of plasma bolts, HMC rounds and agitated particles melted through ships, either completely vaporizing them or setting the reactors into meltdown before detonating into a warm glow of orange and blue, a tell tail sign of Element Zero reactors.

The next line of fire crashed into the enemy fleet in the form of MAC rounds and capitol grade needles. The ships with needles in them struggled with the sudden extra weight before the crystals glowed a brighter pink and detonated, tearing the ships apart with the explosive force of the blast. The kinetic energy from the Onagers drilled through the weak barriers on the ships before colliding with the superstructure on the ships and ripping through them. Once again reactors melted down and detonated.

A third wave hit, not the enemy but the Earth-born/Arisen line. The Arisen ships shrugged off the heavy slugs with the Hard Light lattice that covered every inch of the ships. The Earth-born ships faired a little worse as they shook slightly from the impacts but held no noticeable damage.

"Shields?" John asked. The _Unyielding Death _had taken most of the shots, being in the front of the fleet and the biggest ship.

"Holding sir, 45%" Said the weapons lieutenant.

The True Reclaimer noticed the two largest ships from the beginning of the fight still intact. At 2.5 kilometers it had to be the pride of their fleet. John let out a small predatory smile when he saw the Daedalus was still fully charged.

"Weapons, hit those ships with Daedalus," John commanded.

John could almost hear the smile in the man's voice "Yes sir."

The Daedalus shook the entire Super Dreadnought as the massive particle dilator fired. The thick band of silvery gold smashed into the first 2.5 km ship. The ship itself was vaporized and the residual heat was hot enough to melt any near by ships. The beam disappeared moments later before reengaging at a different angle, spearing the other ship with a beam that once again vaporized the ship and the crew, not even dust was left.

Of course after most of the damage was done the Terran Armoured Fleet swopped over head and rained down Mass Accelerator rounds on the wrecked fleet like an old fashioned fighter/bombers strafing a ship at sea. In the end there was one personnel casualty for the Orion Council joint fleet and the enemy laid in ruins, but that was the easy part.

"Bring us in over the planet and launch HEV sections 90 through 130 over the mega cities and set the Onagers to target the military installations and gunships. After three minutes bring us up to help with clean up, we don't need fragments crashing into the planet and killing our troops or the civilians." The True Reclaimer said.

* * *

Nos Alen, Eden Prime

Lar'Raanis nar Adori wiped her gloved hands on her matte black enviro-suit as she crawled out from under the cab. She then walked to the back of the Mass Effect engine before pulling out the intake converters from the back.

Lar'Raanis only slightly regretted choosing Eden Prime as her pilgrimage spot. Sure it was safe and quiet and most of the Turians weren't xenophobic. She was also lucky she got a decent job in Drok's repair shop with good hours and pay. She also discovered her like for the same gender on Eden Prime with her first 'encounter' with a Turian female. Lar sighed nostalgically at the memory. She had been drunk at a bar in downtown Nos Alen and the nice Turian had offered to give her a ride home. On the way home Lar had started asking more and more intimate questions. At first the girl had been taken back but after a while they started to hit it off.

It came to the point where Lar and Grari Sartrin, the Turian female, where seeing each other almost everyday. After about a month of close contact and gaining a close friendship Grari dropped a bomb on her after flying out to the middle of a field. She remembers it like it was yesterday.

The sun is setting over the beautiful skyline of Nos Alen. Lar's breath still hitched at the sight of it. The tall buildings tuned black with small neon lights shining around it. Behind it the sky was multicolored with hues of orange, purple, dark blue and black. Lar framed it with her three fingered hands like in was a holostill.

Lar scooted over when Grari exited the air car, making room for her on the hood of it. Grari sat heavily on the hood, digging it deeper into the lose ground. Grari sighed as she sat while pulling a long, slender bottle out of her jacket. Turian Brandy, and expensive looking too.

"Want a drink Lar? It's been a long day for me," She asked, pulling out a glass and a bottle anyway.

Lar chuckled warmly that Grari already knew the answer. She accepted the sealed bottle with a straw in it gratefully. Lar put the straw up to the "emergency induction port", as she jokingly called it, and took a sip while looking out into the sunset. Lar looked over to see Grari finish draining a glass already and pouring a new one for herself.

"Sstarting the night out heavy?" Lar asked, slightly slurring her words and already smiling. No matter how much experience she was drinking she was always a lightweight, mostly due to her small size.

Grari laughed though it sounded…empty almost to Lar. Grari muttered something to herself low enough that the translator didn't pick it up. Lar didn't like this, Grari was usually happy and outgoing and willing to help complete strangers. But Grari was never down trodden for long and never looked. . . nervous.

"Is everything alright?" Lar asked, now concerned for her friends wellbeing.

"Yeah it's just... I got a lot on my mind," Grari answered slowly.

Lar reached out and grabbed her friend's shoulder "Tell me, Grari, what's wrong?" Lar was almost surprised at her tone, the worry was palpable and the drunkenness disappeared.

"It's... It's just I'm being drawn back into my garrison soon and there is this one person I been looking at for a couple of months and I think I like them," Grari said this a if the answer was tortured out of her.

"Why don't you tell them? Ssssurely they can turn you down. You are sssuch a wonderful person and you are always ssssoooo nice and happy," Lar told her friend, slurring her words again after the worry wasted away.

Grari got a mischievous glint in her eyes for a moment before answering "The problem with that, Lar'Raanis, is that I already did." Lar felt her chest get tighter and eyes widen at the revelation.

"I love you Lar'Raanis nar Adori." With that said Grari wrapped her arms around Lar and pulled her closer. In her suddenly sober state she only reveled in the warmth coming off of Grari, heating her through her insulated eco-suit.

Grari pulled out two small vials from her jacket. "Immune boosters, of you want them."

Lar took them into her hands. The vials held a greenish, viscous liquid that didn't look at all appetizing. Lar looked Grari, then to her hands, and felt the tightness in her chest. With the sudden steel that came from her feeling she reached to her mask's release latches and pressed them in.

The next thing Lar remembered was waking up with a nasty headache and cough and a wonderful ache in her private areas. Lar looked over and saw Grari sleeping more peacefully then she had ever seen. Lar assembled her eco-suit and waited for Grari to wake up to drive her home.

Snapping out of her stupor Lar remembered what she hated the most about Eden Prime. Eden Prime was dull and Lar liked to adventure, but it could always be worse and so everything was alright. She shuddered at the thought of worse, Omega. Those that went almost never came back.

Lar'Raanis nar Adori hummed to herself as she set the heavy thing on a cart and pulled out a new one from one of the shelves off to the side. She walked back over when her boss Drok Morick came out from the front of the shop stretching. He was the standard height for a Turian and had more muscles then most behind his yellow painted brown plates. Some of the fringes in the back of his head were damaged from what he said was a 'stupid accident'.

"Hey Drok, hows the shop?" Lar asked the Turian.

"It's fine, a bit slow though. Nobody's breaking anything anymore. I say it's your fault, fixing everything the right way."

Lar might have taken that as a threat if it wasn't for Drok's playful tone and shit eating grin. Lar was distracted by the lights flickering and the sudden darkness when the bulbs gave out, leaving only the few window for lighting. Lar and Drok looked at each other in concern, they had both heard about the Relay incident but thought nothing of it. After all who would, the Turian military was the strongest in the galaxy. They were, weren't they?

"What do you think that was Lar?" Drok asked, his words are ignored because one of the biggest flashes of light Lar had ever seen blasted into the room from the windows, however there was no sound to accompany such a bright flash.

"Tell me if I'm wrong Drok but don't nuclear weapons cause EMP's and bright flashes that can be seen from the ground and not be heard?"

Drok shook his head violently, not wanting to accept that. Nuclear weapons were banned by the Council for being too dangerous. The blasts could kill hundreds of thousands while the fallout could kill millions more and leave the surface uninhabitable for the next several generations.

"Drok, remember the news? The encounter from the dormant Relay? What if they have come to avenge the ships lost? Nuclear weapons are banned so it can be from any of the other races."

"Don't be silly Lar lets head outside. Maybe the power grid just failed, we'll see what the block looks like."

Lar just nodded dumbly and walked out and sure enough the block was out of power, as was the rest of the city. However the next sight Lar saw she would never forget, it was easily the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

The heavens parted and from the space came a large metal plate. The plate was large enough to block out the sun from the horizon. The sight paralyzed Lar to the spot. The only thing she could do was stand there and watch as Drok cursed the spirits of Nos Alen.

Lar watched as thousands of little dots dropped from the darkened horizon and hurdled towards the ground. Lar watched as a gunship flew under the metallic beast only to be shot down by one of the turrets on the side with only one shot. She could only stand there and stare at the little dots and microshards of durasteel as they grew bigger in her vision, horrified that the end of her was something that her race was never involved in, horrified that the strongest military power was hopeless against this new race, and most of all sad that she might never see Grari again.

Lar just waited for the heat that would come and take her life, killed on her pilgrimage to a new world. Lar only regret was that she couldn't tell Grari that she loved her back because she never had the guts. One of the growing dots landed close by, only a couple yards away. The immense heat of the impact rolled over her while shockwave blasted her off her feet, causing her to fly back a foot and crack her head on the hard, unforgiving ground.

Groaning she slowly opened her eyes and stood up at the thing in front of her. It looked like a one person escape pod scorched black and had a tinted window on it. Steam rolled off of it, coating the ground in an eerie fog that quickly dissipated under the warm sun. Suddenly the front plate explosively separated from the pod's body. Lar stood there, paralyzed at the sight as the door flew off and landed, skidding to a halt right in front of her feet, smoking and slightly twisted from the heat of reentry and the explosive ejection.

Lar looked up and saw an armoured giant half fell half leaped out of the pod, landing on the ground on it's knees with a dull thud. It immediately reminded her of a cross breed of her own species males, a krogan battle master, and heavy mech. The giant shook it's helmeted head as if to clear it, an action too organic for Lar to believe that it was a mech. Lar wanted to run but couldn't, every instinct and scrap of survival training fled from her as she dumbly stood before the creature. The giant looked right at her and raised what had to be a weapon at her. It was long, angular and looked to be designed for fear factor and functionality. Lar was startled back into reality when Drok stood in front of her and lightly pushed her behind him.

Drok snarled slightly as the giant pressed a button on its wrist and a thin red light reached out and crossed over them. The giant relaxed it's stance when the light retracted and stood up to what had to be seven and a half feet tall. The giant walked past them, not sparing the two another glance.

"What. . . what was that?" Lar finally managed to squeak out.

"I don't know," Drok said, "But lets get to my place, it has to be safer then standing in the streets."

Lar'Raanis just nodded dumbly, still terrified of the giant even after its disappearance. She had found the remedy to make Eden Prime less boring, and she didn't like it at all. And worse Grari had been recalled back to her military base earlier that day. Lar's heart wrenched in her chest.

* * *

**Codex**

Arisen Destroyers

The Destroyers are 2.5 kilometers long, the same as an Arisen Frigate. The Destroyers have the same mass as the Frigates despite having only a meter of armour, with slightly more around the Engineering sections. All the extra mass comes from the extra reactors that power the ships to be faster then any other Arisen ship.

A Destroyers role in the Arisen Navy is the same as bombers in atmosphere. They swoop on and drop the payload of superheated plasma and mini nuclear missiles. The missiles are set to detonate after the plasma either breaks the shields from extreme heat or melt through the thick hulls of most other Arisen ships. This ensures maximum damage and next to zero survivability.

Terran Armoured Fleets

Terran Armoured Fleets are similar to regular fleets except one thing, deployment and armament. Terran Armoured Fleets are meant to be deployed into heavy fighting and are equipped as such. Carrying twice the amount of Disrupter Torpedos and triple barreled spinal Mass Accelerator Cannons the Armoured Fleets and dish out more damage then regular fleets. In addition to the extra armament Armoured Fleets have Reactive Armour attached to the ships hard points to allow extra damage to be taken by each ship.

Kig Yar Sniper Battalion

Tried and true, the KigYar Sniper Battalions are the toughest and meanest around. With nimble, agile bodies and keen eye sight the Kig Yar are the perfect snipers. Put through one year of harsh training the Sniper Battalions learn to easily hit a flies wings off with on shot at one kilometer. A strong sense of comradeship and respect pull these units together and make them the lethal weapons that they are.

Daedalus Particle Dilator

The Daedalus is massive, standing 40 kilometers long from end to end. All Daedalus' require enormous amounts of energy in order to focus, chamber, and fire the six energy lances. This limits the Daedalus to orbital defense platforms and the recently finished Super Dreadnaught. The Daedalus has enough power to completely vaporize an Arisen Frigate in three shots.

Inquisitor Class Vessels

The Inquisitor vessels are the descendants of old ONI Prowlers. Sitting at 1 kilometer long they are the smallest space exclusive ship made by the Arisen. Utilizing radar refracting composites, advanced heatsinks and active camouflage to stay undetected Prowlers are the greatest stealth ships known to date.

Containing no armaments besides the Photon Bombs Inquisitors need to be stealthy in order to survive. Under an experienced Captain and a powerful AI an Inquisitor and drift into and enemy formation, run deep scans from the advanced sensor package, plot entire engagements and proper lines of fire, and leave without a trace. This make the Inquisitors the deadliest of all the Arisen ships.


	2. Chapter 2: Pacification

**A/N: So Chapter Two, yay! Once again thanks to BrokenArrow411 for Beta reading. Also Thanks to casquis for allowing me to barrow his OC. Check out his story ****The Life**** for an epic of epic proportions. Also I'm bringing back a character from the first TaR. Don't worry she'll be almost exactly the same. Also anyone who can get how many times I used bungie's favorite number than you can ask one question about the story, as long as it doesn't ruin most of the plot. Don't worry if it does you can ask again. Anyways you don't really care about what I have to say so on with the story.**

**P.S. - That line is overused**

* * *

CH. 2 Pacification

Surface of Alien Planet

Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Lance Corporal Henry Adams peeled himself off the HEV's form-fitting crash padding. Henry shook his head again to clear it from the rough landing. The ship's AI connection was lost for some reason, some kind of signal jammer appeared to be in the area, so he had direct his fall manually and the retro thrusters had failed to activate until the last second, so they didn't cushion his fall as well as they should have. This meant that he had ultimately landed three klicks away from his intended landing site, which meant he was three klicks behind enemy lines with no support beyond his rifle and his armour. His mission was the same as his squad's, find one of the archives listed in the intelligence scan and download everything.

Henry stretched as much as he could inside the cramped metal coffin. Finding nothing wrong other then his feet hurting like a bitch and his vision still slightly blurry he mashed the door's emergency release button. The small amounts of C-36 explosive rocketed the HEV's door off its original spot and into the unknown.

Henry jumped out of the pod, rifle in hand, only to collapse to his knees on the alien pavement. He tried to shake the vertigo from his head and succeeded, if only temporarily. Slowly, as to not bring another wave of vertigo, the Lance Corporal looked up. His vision cleared slightly and he immediately saw something move. Whipping his Light Energy Assault Platform up from his side he moved to one knee and got a clearer view of it.

It was presumably female, although with her mammalian glands he was almost 100 percent positive, and covered in some form of a bio-suit. The suit was matte black and had some elaborate patterns woven in. The patterns consisted of the same black base but had light grey swirls that arched around the covering over the being's head. Finally the suit had some reflective glass pane that was polarized a bright green and had two silvery orbs behind it.

The poor girl was obviously in shock as she was trembling slightly with might have been a blank stare through those silver orbs behind that visor. To make things worse she now had a LEAP pointed at her and the door from his HEV pod was laying at her feet, twisted and smoking from both the heat of reentry and the C-36, which was evidence of her almost being smashed by his arrival. Henry noticed movement in the corner of his eye but kept his head and weapon focused on the girl, if the worse came to worse he could start a hostage situation or detonate his GEN 10 Powered Assault Armour's fission/fusion reactor, bathing anything in the immediate vicinity in nuclear light.

The blur in his peripheral vision got more defined as it stood in front of the girl and pushed her slightly behind it. 'Hmm, another alien, maybe friends, no matter' Henry thought as he activated the active scanner in the bottom of his wrist, lancing out beams of semi-solid Hard Light as is collected some of the basic information on this race: body structures and any weapon signatures. They came back clean from the weapon scan but is must have appeared threatening because the alien was growling the entire time.

Since they were clean of weapons Henry had no reason to kill them, for now, so Henry stood up and walked off around the corner and into an alley heading for the downtown of the Mega City, which was his unit's designated LZ. Henry jogged through the alleyways when it started to get bright out. Henry looked up to see the Super Dreadnaught _Unyielding Death_ climb out of atmosphere. He switched his radio on to contact his squad leader, Captain Francisco Castillo.

A horrifying screech of white noise filled the soundproof helmet that only made the echo that much worse. A long stream of curses followed as Henry fumbled to eradicate the source of the noise. After a solid three seconds of looking like a damn fool he flipped the radio off and was left with the worlds worse case of ringing ears. It took a few minutes before his hearing came back, although only slightly. Henry ordered the suit to preform a diagnostic on his communication suite. Everything checked out so it wasn't on his end, which meant it was on the squad's end or from a jammer.

Henry looked up to see more aliens come sprinting past with weapons in hand. They stopped just past the alleyway as he could hear one barking orders in a flanged voice as well as the clanging of what might have been metal barriers on the hard asphalt.

Henry took a knee and toggled the modification controls. The LEAP split apart like a Forerunner Light rifle. All the pieces of the LEAP shot out into an area of interconnected Hard Light, giving it an appearance of a working 3-D blueprint. He slid out the catalyst module in his LEAP's and switched it from condensed to splash to handle the lightly armored infantry. Next he removed the secondary grenade launcher module from the bottom and dropped in a Scatter Shot module with a heavy bolt catalyst module. He toggled the same controls and the LEAP formed back into a weapon, abet with a slight change in appearance, and he stood up.

The aliens were now mostly quiet with just a few murmurs coming from them only for a harsh voice to silence them. Henry leaned out of the corner and analyzed the defense they set up. He was almost impressed. Half meter waist high cover lined the streets in an orderly fashion that allowed easy firing lines and quick lines of retreat for the entire platoon of alien soldiers. Heavy turrets were being set up in the back and small stockpiles were being placed around in an orderly fashion. The only problem was that they were facing the wrong way.

They had prepared for the enemy to come in on dropships and gunships with heavy armor at the outskirts of town pressing in, clearing the way as they went. They had not prepared for orbital insertions, heavy orbital bombardment, and a complete systems disruption. All in all they had prepared for a cut and dry set piece invasion, not the shock and awe invasion that the Arisen preferred.

Henry knew that he couldn't take them all, no matter how advanced his technology was there were just too many, so he had to improvise. He mentally activated the active camouflage module, pulled out most of his supply of C-36 breaching charges, and reshaped the explosives from a cone to a rough flat disc. Then Henry slipped out of cover and crouch walked to the front of the defensive line, placing the breaching charges in a staggered line across all the metal barriers and about a foot from each of the aliens. He had some close calls when one of them would sniff the air, seemingly able to smell him, or one of them would shift positions slightly and he would have to move around him. He finally finished his placement after ten minutes and hurried back to his starting point, rechecking the small devices as he returned, taking another five minutes. He then crept around into the alley and mentally thumbed the detonators. Massive blue, yellow explosions rocked the alien lines as the breaching charges detonated. The aliens inside of the blast zone simply vanished into the glow while the aliens farther out had their flesh melted off, their skeletons carbonized, their insides liquefied, or suffered from varying second and third degree burns. The air hung thick with the stench of burnt flesh and the howling screams of panic and pain.

Hearing the cries, Henry rounded the corner, LEAP level and ready to fire. Thin golden lances reached out and licked enemy soldiers, the aggravated photons blossoming out and consuming armor and flesh alike. Screams cut off instantly as Henry delivered mercy blows from his assault module. Henry then switched to the shell-shocked soldiers, once again firing the LEAP's assault module and claiming more lives. The aliens tried to focus on him but their confusion and disorientation cost them dearly. Many were either trying to help their buddies with their wounds or were trying to restore order after the explosion. A great many more weren't even able to fight, either dead or heavily wounded and unconscious from the explosion.

Henry watched as the last conscious trooper finally fell, most of his face melted away to leave only a slightly carbonized skull. He then walked among the ruins of the battlefield, if you could even call it that. The high explosives had damaged the surrounding buildings and most of the glass farther out from the blast radius had been shaken lose and sown on the ground in wispy fragments. The center of detonation were blackened, cratered, and held more then a few charred skeletons. Only a few halves of the metal barriers were intact and even those were thrown a few feet from their starting positions. Henry had forgotten how destructive C-36 was on non-Forerunner alloy. The frantic gunfire had left little pits and large scorch marks in the walls of surrounding buildings. Bodies laid in groups, dead before they had time to move during the sudden ambush.

He checked some of the soldiers for objects of interest and found some had some kind of microchip on their wrist that wouldn't activate to his touch. He rounded them up anyway, R&D would have a ball accessing the information on them. Henry rounded up the last of the microchips that were intact and glanced at the waypoint that popped up on his HUD. It pointed 1.2 kilometers into the city and was followed by a short message. "Come get us rookie. Oh and you better hurry before I'll eat your lunch and put you on first watch." Sometimes Castillo was an ass. Scratch that, most of the time Castillo was an ass. He still didn't understand how he got his wife. He had heard the stories about the Captain, he had lived and fought through most of the Great War and lived to tell about it. After the War he had stayed in the ODSTs to "lead the greatest squad of badasses that ever lived", quote unquote. If Henry knew Castillo he was going to be sitting on a rock, eating his MRE, and drinking a stolen beer with not a single alien in sight, completely safe and without a worry while making him run through Dante's Inferno to get there.

Henry thumbed the release and the rear of the gun split apart like a Concussion Rifle ejecting its plasma cell. A small cylinder raised out slightly with a little heat gauge on it. The gauge read red, so he yanked it out and threw it behind him before smoothly pulling one from his combat harness and slamming it home. The rear closed up like a wilting flower in the cold and Henry knew that he was ready to roll.

Examining the bending roads, Henry plotted a new course to downtown, following the waypoint to his new objective…finding his squad.

* * *

Private Council Chambers, Citadel

Valern, Sparatus, and Tevos watched the disturbing montage for the third time. It was a series of sensor readings, images and short video clips taken by the fleet and satellites near Eden Prime. No matter how many times they replayed the image it never got any better. It showed one of the most one-sided naval battles in the history of the Council, and it wasn't going their way.

While Sparatus was a major skeptic he couldn't deny hard video evidence such as this. Tevos was already thinking about what these ships could do if they entered Asari space. She was compromiser and a lot of that would have to be made. Valern simply analyzed more of the hard data that was scrolling across the bottom of the screen and thinking of countermeasures for these unknowns. Unfortunately…Salarians weren't good with unknowns.

The first sign of the attack was a massive spike in Cherenkov radiation and mass effect energy on the sensors before a fleet of exactly 4,981 ships appeared on the screen. At this moment three detonations released a massive amount of energy from a space around the size of a Turian's head. Next a part of the alien fleet shot off to the side around the gas giant. Then the aliens launched a large number of missiles, which deployed a payload of pure plasma and nuclear warheads. At this point about half of the Turian Fleet had recovered and began firing at the enemy ships streaking away, but mere meters from the hull blood-red energy shields flared and deflected the slugs like they were annoying flies.

Tevos' eyes couldn't stop looking at conglomerate of enemy ships. At the forefront was a massive vessel measuring fifty-six kilometers long, which was even longer than the Citadel! It was blocky, utilitarian, covered in guns and seemed to absorb all the light around it, only visible by the faint yellow gold lines that danced along the length of most of the ship. Next there were several ships that appeared to be made of the same strange metal but looked more organic and smooth with deadly purple accents. Another group appeared to be a mix of the first two ship types but were covered in a metal that glinted brightly under the light. Then there were a handful of ships that looked like scrap heaps welded together or looked like a squid from Thessia, complete with moving tentacles and all.

Their weaponry held just as much variety as the ships themselves. Long streaks of silver, yellow-gold lances, purple blobs, slender pink crystals, and giant orange streaks all soared towards the Turian fleet with deadly results as ships shattered and detonated. The killing blow came when the 56 km ship rushed ahead after being hit by the Turian Dreadnoughts and most of the surviving fleet, with no effect, and firing a massive beam of light that hit them with catastrophic consequences. In the final phase the ships that circled around the gas giant closed in and rained a number of volleys of mass accelerator rounds upon the Turians, crushing any last attempts at resistance.

In the end of the report STG reported that the 56km ship had skimmed the atmosphere of Eden Prime and launched shells and what might have been atmospheric entry pods towards the surface. Also in the report it stated that three shots from the 56 km ships energy cannon could and most likely would boil through the Citadel's armour, though it was only speculation.

"... Spirits," was all Sparatus had to say. Tevos agreed with him, a large fleet of unknowns rushed through the system and destroyed the entire Turian Second Fleet, which held the largest number of dreadnoughts in the entire Turian Navy. Even with this advantage the Second Fleet had crumbled under these alien's might. Valern just studied the loop again, for the fourth time. Finally Valern made a move, shutting down the holodisplays as to stop Sparatus from gaping at the hundreds of thousands of Turians dead in the six minutes of space combat. All eyes fell on the disgruntled General standing before them.

"So what could have provoked them into doing this? They are obviously an advanced sentient species and I highly doubt they would just attack for no good reason," Valern said.

"We gave them a reason Councilor. They activated a dormant Relay and in following Council Law a passing patrol group destroyed the vessels responsible," The General said.

Tevos' eyes widened at the revelation. "You fired on unknown ships without making contact? And for a law they wouldn't know existed?" She asked. The General nodded grimly in confirmation.

Sparatus spoke up after finding his voice. "Who authorized the Second Fleet to move?"

"The Admiral stationed there said they had made contact with a new, hostile species, saying they had fired upon our patrol group. In response we sent the closest fleet we had in hopes of stonewalling an invasion," The General replied.

"Did they fire?" Tevos asked.

"What?"

"Did they fire first?" Tevos clarified.

"No. The patrol group opened fire as soon as the unknowns came through the Relay," The General said.

"So they might listen to peace." Tevos said. She cared a lot about the Turians. If that fleet could role through the Second Fleet like nothing then if they wanted to take Asari space they wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Valern just checked the raw data on his omnitool again. He had a lot of unknown variables but he also had a few theories on how to combat the energy weapons, which he quickly forwarded to STG headquarters for evaluation as the others droned on.

"No, absolutely not!" Sparatus said. "They slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Turian in six minutes. Your little peace delegation will be torn apart in seconds!"

"They might be but this is a risk we must take. If they could go in without weapons charged they might be spared. Think of the lives on both sides that will be saved." Tevos shot back.

Sparatus nodded thoughtfully before turning to the General. "Give them access to the Relay but prepare for the worst should they fail."

Valern spoke up suddenly. "Are we sure this is only one of their fleets?"

"What do you mean?" Sparatus asked.

"Look at the size of it, it's bigger than the Citadel Defense Fleet. What if this is all of their ships?"

"Does it matter Valern? I mean even if it is we can't go toe to toe with them without taking unacceptable losses. I assume the STG has contingency plans?" Sparatus asked. Valern nodded in confirmation.

Tevos turned to the General. "This meeting of the Council is adjourned."

* * *

Forward Operating Base Atlas, Eden Prime

General Desolas Arterius ran across the Command Center, assault rifle slung across his back. He loved the weight, it made him feel like a soldier again, a real one, not a paper pusher sitting in a glorified chair. The rush of his soldiers darting around him and the orderly voices on the comm channels only helped to set his mood.

The base shock violently as another one of the alien's kinetic shells smashed into the protective kinetic barrier. His good men fumbled about from their unstable footing before continuing on their way…and then silence. The bombardment ceased and there was nothing to be heard, even the electric hum from the monitors gave out as the base's power failed. This left an eerie quite around the FOB.

"Get us power! I want a damage report and I want it now!" He called out, his orders breaking the silence.

The floor exploded into a flurry of activity as his staff ran about. Combat engineers shifted around in a fluidity that bespoke their training and experience. They rerouted wires and reconnected electricity streams…the base started to come back online.

"We're ok sir. The barrier held out just long enough to stop the barrage…wait, that's not right," came the voice of Saren Arterius, his brother, who was reading off the most recently reactivated terminal, mandibles tightening further and further as he read on.

"What is it brother?" Desolas asked as his brother stared at the screen.

"The perimeter guards are not responding and several motion sensors around the base have been tripped. I'm getting reports of soldiers falling back to the CP," Saren said.

Desolas understood what that meant. Last stand. The Command center was the last stop, only one way in and one way out.

"Defensive positions! Get some barriers out and set them up, if we're fated to die, then by the Spirits we'll make the aliens pay for every last one of us!" Desolas yelled out.

The engineers that were just rewiring electrical systems found themselves quickly cutting metal plates off of nonessential objects, such as the very terminals that they were just trying to fix. The plates were then welded to the floor as the command personnel bunkered down. Slowly soldiers came funneling in and were directed to positions in the big room. Finally one last group entered and locked the door behind them.

"Report!", Desolas yelled at them.

"They . . .they are coming sir. I've never . . . seen something move ..." The soldier were interrupted by three loud bangs on the durasteel door.

"Get to cover! Fire once that door opens up!" Desolas roared out as he crouched behind his cover and stabilized his gun on the edge. His heart was beating faster then he thought possible as his body amped up for the coming fight.

The door vaporized in a blue, yellow flash and two blurs entered the room and for the Turians…

All hell broke loose…

* * *

Outskirts of Alien FOB, Alien Planet

Emily-9027 listened as Harold-9184 disassembled and reassembled his Heavy Energy Assault Platform for the umpteenth time since the Headhunters' insertion on this rock. They laid on top of a grassy knoll about a kilometer away from a little FOB. A little farther back a Beetle mortar platform was launching shells at it. Their mission was to take out the base's signal jammer and confirm the sighting of a high ranking officer, and eliminate him if possible. Now they sat on the edge of the knoll, waiting for the base to crack under the pressure.

Through her sniper scope Emily scoped out potential targets. She shifted slightly and firmly set her crosshairs on each alien in a watchtower before repeating the motion. Behind her the Beetle launched a number of rounds at the base's kinetic shields. All of the projectiles were purposefully aimed at the base's edges, so that when the barriers fell they could infiltrate the outer walls easier.

The barrier shined even brighter from the strain before breaking with a loud crack, sounding like a thousand glass windows as the field dissipated into the air. Emily sent a double red flash to the Beetle, signaling it to stop the bombardment. Emily then sent a green flash to Harold, enacting the next part of the infiltration. Harold rushed out into the waiting kill zone, the tall grass parting around his form even as the surviving aliens turned to fire on him. Emily looked down her scope and dialed in on the first watchtower guard, who fell as a 15x117mm slug bored through its head and turned it into a dark blue mist. She shifted targets to the next guard in one fluid motion. Three more aliens fell in quick succession with a dull thud and a puff of blue mist.

Still aiming down her scope Emily turned to the giant hole in the xeno-compound's wall and saw Harold crouching behind the debris pile left behind. He was firing full auto with his MG module, the golden lances carving into the hostiles on the other side of the wall. Seeing this, Emily shouldered the sniper rifle and drew two small coil SMG's, while checking to see that the magazines were firmly pressed in place.

She sprinted to the opening in the wall and slammed into it with a heavy thud. Glancing around the corner Emily saw Harold moving in the open and still firing his HEAP. The HEAP's barrel was glowing white hot from the rapid fire heat of the Hard Light bolts. Meanwhile, his shields crackled red as the enemy slugs slammed into them.

Emily decided to join the fight and moved into the open SMGs spitting out 6mm iron bullets that shredded both alien shields and flesh alike. The two were relentless and soon managed to push the xenos back with their heavy fire. The enemy pulled back into the inner building of the FOB, no doubt setting up traps along the way as a few of them remained to act as a rearguard. Finally as the last one tumbled back with half his torso carbonized, the doors slammed shut and a red hologram flashed in place. Emily turned to Harold just as he did the same and he shrugged. Being the demolitions expert of the two he had most of the breaching charges and high explosives. Harold quickly slapped a breaching charge on the door under the hologram as it continually said "Access denied".

Emily waited for one of Harold's infamous one-liners and wasn't disappointed. "Access this.", he snapped as he keyed the detonator. The door atomized in a brilliant blue, yellow flash of light. Simultaneously, Emily pulled out a white phosphorous grenade and threw it through the recently made threshold. A few yells were heard as well as the stomping of footsteps just before a loud pop designated the grenade's detonation. The duo rounded to corner to see two twitching bodies in the burning cloud, clawing at their faces as they breathed their final breaths. The Headhunters' shields just flared and pushed the minuscule airborne elements away as they walked through.

Emily finished off both of the wounded aliens as a mercy kill as she walked by before she heard the screech of metal twisting and saw Harold ripping the next door off its hinges. With a grunt he threw the door into the next room. Harold and Emily braced for gunfire as they rushed inside only to find that the room was clear. Harold took a tentative step forward, expecting the roof to fall or the room the spontaneously combust. Nothing of the sort happened so the pair walked forward.

This continued on for a while. Harold would rip a door off its hinges or breach with charges and they would brace for anything. When nothing followed Harold would step out and wait for a trap or ambush. When that didn't happen they would continue to the next door. Wash, rinse, repeat. After what felt like hours of tense anticipation the Headhunters made it to the biggest room yet.

"I'm picking up chatter in the next room," Emily said when her audio sensor spiked.

Harold grunted and drew three breaching charges and pasted them to the door with a bang before stepping back. "Might as well give them a show," He said as he flipped on the secondary module of his HEAP, an incendiary rifle.

The door disintegrated in a bright blue, yellow flash as the two rushed forward. The room behind the door was enormous, the biggest one yet, it the center was an elevated platform, and to the sides were rows and rows of hastily created barricades and firing lines.

The SPARTAN IIs rushed in at full sprint, bullets pinging off of walls and the Hard Light shields of the SPARTANs as they advanced. Emily ran to the right and Harold to the left in an attempt to split the enemy's fire. The tactic work beautifully.

Emily lined up on the first set of soldiers, two of the aliens behind waist high cover. Bullets pelted the two and drained their shields before dropping them as they became swiss cheese. Emily slid back into the cover as her shields hit the breaking point, shattering with a crack, which seemed to encourage the aliens. All the hostiles seemed to abandon their attempt at killing Harold as he melted a path to the back of the room and focused on the now unshielded Emily. She scrunched herself deeper into cover as bullets chipped away at the barrier and the ground a few centimeters behind her. She blind fired over her protection and the fire slackened for a moment before picking up again.

Emily sent a short range to Harold. "Care to help a lady out?"

She could hear metallic pings as bullets hit his armor and the hiss of his incendiary rifle on the other end of the radio. "Sorry little lady. You're gonna have to make your own way out." He grunted back, his Scottish brogue coming out thick, which only happened when he was really in trouble.

The pings on the other side of the barrier were getting louder and a few even managed to penetrate it. If she didn't act now her lighter armor was going to get perforated. She drew two thermobaric grenades from her fanny data pack.

"You're going to want to duck Harold," She warned her partner.

With a press of a button the grenades primed and she blindly chucked them towards the crowd of enemies. The low scale 'vacuum bombs' released a heated aerosol into the air with a scatter charge before a secondary plasma charge ignited the aerosol. The closest targets didn't stand a chance, the heat burned them into nothing but charred remains. The rest died in a much more horrible way: the heat burning flesh, the shock wave pounding their internal organs into mush, limbs torn from sockets, and because of the confined space the wave bounced back to hit others.

Emily's armor pushed the shields and ballistics gel layer to the max, quick draining all nonessential power to supercharge the Hard Light emitters. She fell thousands of pinpricks from all over as the gel layer pressed into her while it expanded past the safety limit. She lost her HUD and most of her augmented strength as the powered exoskeleton largely deactivated and the weight of the half ton armor began to set in.

She laid there on the ground as the suit fought for her life for 10 seconds until all the systems rebooted. Finally the systems came back online and she felt semi-normal again. Emily slowly stood up and looked around the room.

What she saw was the stuff of nightmares. Two blackened craters were left in the ground where the grenades detonated. The walls bent outwards in an unhealthy direction and they looked as if they were about to collapse. Several limbs were strewn about, some close to the bodies, others hanging from support struts or across the room. Most of the enemy soldiers lay dead or in the bliss of unconscious; those that weren't writhed in agony, clutching their torsos or holding severe burns. They would die in a matter of minutes.

She spotted Harold trying to get up. The front of his massive chest piece was pockmarked where the bullets hit him and smothered in dark suet. Emily walked over to him and helped him up, while he dusted himself off theatrically. Harold nodded in thanks and walked off in search of the objective.

Meanwhile, Emily walked around and tried to identify the commanding officer, a task made almost impossible by the use of the thermobaric devices and Harold's incendiary rifle. Eventually she made her way to what she guessed could be the officer, judging by his red armor and red shield emitter. Well that and an earlier intelligence report forwarded to the Headhunter pair told them this signified an officer of some kind. The officer was curled around another alien, as if to protect it. The other one was banged up, its arm was gone from the shoulder down and was unconscious.

She just shot the officer in the head to confirm the kill. She then turned around to help Harold find the jammer when a loud bang reverberated throughout the space. Emily sent the green light to the Beetle, telling the commander they didn't need their assistance. She then opened a channel to command.

"Command this is Headhunter group Reaper, come in."

"This is Central Actual, we read you Reaper."

"Reaper is requesting exfil. Mission complete, over."

"We copy five by five Reaper, Pelican inbound. ETA 10 minutes. Central out." Then the comm went silent as Central cut the link. Emily opened a new channel to Harold.

"Come on Harold, it's time to get off this rock."

"Aye Em, but it's our rock now."

* * *

Downtown, Alien Planet

Henry kicked the alien over, hard, as the alien howled in pain before he shot it in the face with his Scatter Shot module, the heavy bolts shredding its face. The battlefield became quiet with only the sounds of his labored breathing and the light sizzling of flesh remaining.

He pressed the release button and ripped out the flashing red plasma cell and slammed in fresh green one. A soft clank signaled the gun was ready to fire once again. With his weapon fully loaded, Henry quickly made his way into the building that the squad had set up shop in.

The metal door caved in easily, hitting the floor with a metallic clang. Henry had to try hard to not recoil at the sight. Half a dozen human bodies covered the ground, armor warped and distorted in ways he had never seen before. Human organs lay strewn about the room or floated freely in thick red pools of congealed blood. He kicked a stomach out of the way and took a knee, scanner examining the remains for any clue as to what occurred.

All the results that came back were not satisfying. Almost all the organic cells and armor plates showed molecular distortion and damage. There was also evidence of high explosives or anti tank weapons being used on them based off the residue left behind. Henry collected the dog tags from his squadmates' necks for identification and the encoding of their last thoughts. He also specifically noted that Castillo's tag wasn't there.

Henry slung the LEAP over his shoulder and flicked on Enhanced Virtual Reality Visor. The EVRV used a combination of dumb AI runtimes, thermal imaging, night vision, realtime information, and promethean vision and standard issue to most Arisen special forces. His visor lit up with waves of blue lights as the mode activated, which expanded out and swept through the archive, showing inactive objects in blue, objectives in gold, friendlies in green, and hostiles in red. Henry looked around and saw no red splotches but did spot a gold disk on the next floor up. Flicking EVRV off Henry slowly climbed up the stairs while swinging the LEAP off his shoulder in a fluid motion. Taking a second to check that the Scatter Shot module was still active he finished his ascension.

Calmly making his way over to the room with the golden disk he noticed that room had all of its doors locked. He slipped out his last breaching charge and planted it on the door, taking one last deep breath he detonated the charge. A second after the blast saw Henry stepping past the settling debris, his LEAP ready to spit angry lances at the nearest enemy, instead he was assaulted by a room coated in the familiar blue hue of alien blood. The Lance Corporal spotted the object that was bathed in gold, off in a corner next to a thermobaric grenade. It was a small Arisen storage crystal, which could hold 64 binary Yottabytes of data and his HUD notified him that it was almost full.

He slotted the crystal into the back of his helmet and data flooded across his HUD: languages, races, coordinates of both worlds and installations, fleet data, food sources, DNA, history, everything. Everything this archive had access to was his now, and by extension it now belonged to the Orion Council.

He tried his radio again and this time got something…a weak signal but one none the less. "This is Lance Corporal Henry Adams, I have the package, I say again, I have the package. Need immediate extraction, over."

"We read you Corporal we are sending Whisky 5 for EXFIL, ETA 5 mikes, over."

"I read you, tossing an IR beacon for them, out."

Henry calmly walked outside, and on his way he interfaced with the antimatter reactors on his fellow ODST's armor so they would detonate on command. He threw down an IR beacon and slumped down in a corner for the short wait for Whisky 5. As he waited he pondered where the Captain went, however, the dull roar of a gunship filled the area as it landed in the courtyard. The hatch dropped to reveal the True Reclaimer's personal AI Helen.

She was covered in a complete Hard Light shell. The way she moved seem too natural and her undefined beauty was unmatched. The Hard Light projectors emitted real colors, offsetting from the normal blues and reds. Her hair and clothes matched the wind and turbulence from the Pelican. It unnerved Henry to see how fantastic she appeared.

Helen walked up to Henry and stood in front of him. "Excellent work, Specialist, but we must depart immediately, time is of the essence. The enemy forces are falling apart and now all that is left is the policing action, and the others can handle that. We must get this information decrypted and analyzed for the next element of our plan."

Henry nodded and slipped the storage crystal out of his helmet and gave it to a waiting Helen. She nodded back as she grabbed it and slipped it into her chest, bypassing the clothes, skin, flesh, and bone. Henry could almost hear the AI working over the information. Helen walked onto the gunship with Henry in her wake.

* * *

**Codex**

GEN 10 armour

The GEN 10 armour is the future of the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armour. The GEN 10 is faster and more agile than any that came before it. Along with that the GEN 10 is the first to be pioneered with the Hard Light shield system and heavy Forerunner plates no less than a tenth of a meter thick and up to half a meter thick. To compensate for this the GEN 10 uses more energy to fuel its powered synthetic muscle exoskeleton. Thus the reactor is five time the original output. Each GEN 10 armour has multiple magnetic attachment points for use of non-Arisen weapons. Each GEN 10 comes with a variety of customizable modules and abilities for everyones combat style, from stealth to full frontal assault.

Modules

Modules are upgrade points on an Arisen weapon or armour. These can be anything from going invisible to firing condensed Hard Light. Modules are used to help the soldier adapt to any situation while keeping down weight from extra weapons.

In a LEAP or HEAP you can change out the top and bottom firing systems. Common firing modules are the Assault Rifles, Scatter Shot, and Grenade Launcher on a LEAP and the Incendiary Rifle, Missile Launcher, and Machine Gun for the HEAP. The Incendiary Rifle was specifically designed to combat Flood and Necromorph infestations.

Along with that you can change the way the particle dilator fires in each system with a catalyst module. The two types of catalysts are condensed and splash. Condensed, or Heavy bolts, fires compacted Hard Light bolts designed to damage an object by firing through them and retain their from, like an armour piercing round. Splash fires semi-compacted Hard Light bolts designed to damage an object by hitting them and mushrooming out, transferring a massive amount of thermal heat. Splash was specifically designed to combat Flood and Necromorph infestations.

In armour modules are often called the armour load out. Your armour load out consists of your armour's specialized abilities, such as active camouflage and medical drop shield, and armour's plate thickness for what role it's playing. An example is an infiltrator will likely chose minimal plating, active camouflage, and reroute the power to mobility and active camouflage duration rather than chose the maximum plating and stationary Hard Light barriers.

Heavy Energy Assault Platform (HEAP)

The Heavy Energy Assault Platform is a large two-handed platform on which Hard Light is fired from the hip. Gaining its look from the old M247H Heavy Machine Gun without its magazine and the Type-52 Direct Energy Support Weapon the HEAP is a force to be reckoned with. Firing heavy ordinance the HEAP can easily rip through infantry, light armoured vehicles, and even some medium armoured ones.

Light Energy Assault Platform (LEAP)

The Light Energy Assault Platform is a smaller two-handed platform on which Hard Light is fired from the shoulder. Gaining its look from the old MA5D ICWS and the Light Rifle the LEAP is a sturdy reliable weapon. The LEAP eliminates the need for any specific assault weapon by allowing for a one rifle fits all.

Beetle Mortar Platform

The Beetle Mortar Platform or Beetle for short is the standard artillery unit in the Arisen Armoured Calvary. Designed to launch plasma, Hard Light, nuclear missiles, and kinetic slugs the Beetle allows the Arisen to launch heavy ground based ordinance from the twenty tubes on its 'back'. The Beetle is sturdy enough that it can be dropped from orbit along with ODSTs and SPARTAN IIs to provide immediate fire support.

C-36 High Explosive

The C-36 is the latest in the line of the composition C family. It utilizes the tried and true method of chemical reactions in secondary high explosives as well as incorporating plasma charges to amplify the explosive detonation. One pound of C-36 can blow through one meter of Forerunner armour.

M14 Caseless Coil SMG

The M14 Caseless Coil SMG was the developed in the need for a weapon that didn't fire Hard Light for use in special operations. The answer was the old M7 Caseless SMG. However over time the Arisen grip on linear weapon systems grew till the development of Railguns were easy. After this someone thought of the shrinking of linear technology to a small SMG form. The resulting product was the M14. The M14 was nearly silent as the only sound was of the 6mm pellets breaking the sound barrier and this is muffled by an internal suppressor.

XMS-34 Gauss Sniper Platform

The XMS-34 Gauss Sniper Platform was developed and put into use after the Model 99 Special Application Scoped Rifle was proved ineffective against the rising armours and shields. After this and the stronger grip on linear technology the Arisen developed the XMS-34. The XMS-34 proved to fire a 15x117mm solid slug faster and more reliable than the Model 99 SASR.

Data Storage Device

Data Storage Devices are the next step in storage of everything. Data Storage Devices use a combination between Slipspace extra-dimensional and Earth-born encoding to store objets in a suspended animation. This allows for ammo and modules to be transmitted wirelessly as well as kept in perfect condition from the time of storage. This makes even the most unstable explosives reliable to transport in large quantities.


End file.
